Performance Measurement in Organisations - Apple - Assignment Example

Name: University: Instructor Date: Performance Measurement in Organisations Part A Introduction Corporate social accounting can be defined as a form of accounting carried out by a business organisation to place significance on the impact its undertakings have on community. According to Bhutta and Saeed (175) social accounting needs that businesses examine at every bit of its operations and what type of impact its operations have on society, the environment, and places. It is worth noting that social accounting does not address the kind of resources carried out by financial accounting; instead, it concentrates on organisational activities as well as what type of impact those activities have. On the other hand, corporate social reporting can be defined as the process of communicating the environmental as well as social impact of fiscal organizations. In addition, the reporting can be referred as type of enterprise self-regulation incorporated into an organisational paradigm. Importantly, its policy purposes as a self regulating means whereby enterprise examines and makes sure its actively complying with the fortitude of the international norms along with ethical standards: in this regard, the study seeks to analyse Apple’s social reporting. Analysis Basically, Apple’s culture of confidentiality has undoubtedly facilitated it to turn into the most lucrative corporation in the world. According to Schmundt and Zand, internally, Apple ensures their workers are competitive and determined; whereas externally, customers will anxiously wait for months or even years for the release of a novel product. Undeniably, confidentiality as well as corporate accountability reporting makes a tricky combination, and in the past months Apple’s stakeholders have revealed that they need the corporation’s activities as well as communication in this domain to get better. In china, it is apparent that one of Apple’s largest suppliers recruit juvenile employees and forced its workers to work unlawful overtime (Schmundt and Zand). Furthermore, the company alleged that it needed Pegatron (one of Apple’s supplier) install a system that needed the suppliers to keep hold of workers IDs, an exercise that foils employees from leaving the industrial unit to look for a job in another place. Besides that, Apple has faced unrelenting condemnation from workers’ trade unions as well as rights groups with regards to state of affairs in its supply chain. In mid 2012, the corporation claimed that it had dealt with the concerns about employee safety and working hours raised in Foxconn audits (Apple). However, protests of undue overtime heightened following the challenging creation cycle for the iPhone 5 as well as updates to the Mac as well as iPad PCs, which led to a 2000-employee riot at companies run by Foxconn (Apple 16). Subsequent to such unrests, Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook, promised to shift a number of the company’s production to the US in 2013 to deal with some of the volatility in abroad inexpensive labour. The accusative report by CLW is rooted in a comprehensive research carried out by a number of CLW investigators who worked furtively in Apple’s suppliers’ factories that produce products such as iPhones and iPads. The investigators in Pegatron factories realised that many workers suffer embarrassing public mistreatment at voluntary gatherings held every morning and evening. Furthermore, akin to a military roll call, all employees in these factories stand in a line to be shouted at by their leader, which without doubt is the violation of employees’ rights. Contrary, Apple believes that safety and health are the essential element of every employee’s civil liberties, and so it needs all its suppliers to produce harmless working conditions as well as a mentally and physically hale and hearty work setting, that advocates the Apple’s policy standards (Apple 12). According to Apple (4) the safety as well as health program begins with safety training as well as occupational health and standard audits all over the company’s supplier base. The company agrees that more life-threatening infringements in the past have as well entailed chemicals exposure to employees owing to deprived aeration as well as employees carrying out activities at unsafe heights devoid of safety harnesses or guardrails. From time to time the company has as well find out that worker health along with safety concerns have not been covered during the company’s regular audits. Conclusion In conclusion, corporate social reporting and accounting can assist Apple to examine its performance against economic, environmental and social goals, as well as make sure that it is operating in line with its standards. Notably, audits can bring about a range of noncompliance discoveries, like employees not wearing suitable protec­tive gears, lack of fire detection kit and first-aid provisions, or insufficient emergency evacuations’ exit path. For this reason, Apple must dig deeper to comprehend the root of the setback in its suppliers’ factories, and after that, the company must employ specialists to carry out specialized evaluations. The evaluations’ outcomes must lead Apple to develop novel values for its suppliers to follow. Part B Introduction Every progress in computer world is connected to at least one ethical ambiguity. Basically, issues lying under computer production include provision of ethical duty and satisfying customer’s expectation to make use of applications responsibly. According to Baugher (3), ethics in computer and mobile production concentrates on issues like, property and ownership rights, privacy, computer hacking, software piracy and employee rights violations. Baugher (5) defined ethics as a set of values of right behaviour. In this regard, ethical involves abiding to the values of conduct of a certain group. Moreover, ethical dilemma is a multifaceted state of affairs that involves mental conflict, where two sides disagree about what is wrong, and what is right. Apple has been criticized for violating the code of ethics with regards on how they treat their workers. Analysis Presently, in Shanghai, employees in Pegatron factory are tediously working extended overtime hours to produce a scaled-back, low-priced iPhone version. According to CLW (12) employees are compelled to work from Monday to Saturday in shifts of 11-hour, wherein 20 minutes are voluntary, and the rest is paid at$268 monthly prior to overtime. Undoubtedly, this is below half the standard local monthly earnings of $764 as well as far less the basic living income needed to survive in Shanghai, given that it is rated as the China’s costliest city. For this reason, most employees in Apple’s supplier factories depend on long overtime hours to overcome the high cost of living in China. As if that is not enough, if an employee fails to complete ninety days at Pegatron, the third party company that enabled the employee get employed take away an enormous portion of his/her salary. Following an exhausting day’s work, employee head to their jam-packed dorm rooms, whereby a room is shared by 12 workers; before sleeping they queue for a hasty cold shower in one of the 24 showers used by hundreds of employees. In their thorough investigation, CLW’s disclosed at least 50 ethical violations, 36 legal violations as well as 86 labour rights violations. These violations were grouped into categories: employment inequality, dispatch labour exploitation, women’s rights violations, juvenile employment, contract infringements, inadequate employee training, undue working hours, inadequate earnings, unfortunate working state of affairs, poor living conditions, labour health and safety concerns, difficulty in taking leave, fruitless complaint channels, environmental pollution, as well as mistreatment by management (CLW; Schmundt and Zand). In a nutshell, the Apple’s supplier factories are infringing lots of global values and laws along with the values of Apple’s code of conduct rooted in the company’s social accountability. According to Apple’s 2012 progress report, by assenting to Apple’s Code, suppliers are required to maintain the utmost ethical conduct standards when handling their workforce customers, as well as suppliers. Basically, violations of the company’s rules are unacceptable, and can give rise to instantaneous termination of Apple’s association with the supplier factory, but beforehand most suppliers bribed auditors and forged audit materials to be seen as code of ethics abiders. To supervise fulfilment in the Apple’s ethical standards, the company’s standard audits consist of interviews with workers as well as contract workforce concerning management practices. Undoubtedly, Apple examines closely for coaching occasions, wherein management might have asked employees to offer erroneous information at the time audits. The company as well interview top management, re-examine certification, and examine records and processes of record-keeping. According to the progress report, the essential facet of any audit is the readiness of the supplier to honestly release information as well as records concerning its management practices. Apple’s special audits along with standard audits revealed that there are fundamental ethical violations in suppliers’ factories. For this reason the company command that its suppliers should at once solve the situations that bring about any core ethical violation. Importantly, Apple needs that all suppliers set up management systems that guarantee abidance with all its Code sections together with valid rules and regulations. Furthermore, management systems of suppliers should have the ability to spot and alleviate operational risks. The systems must as well assist suppliers make unremitting enhancements to their practices and standards. Conclusion In conclusion, a number of of ethical issues exhibited by all three articles include: discrimination, inadequate earnings, failing to abide to the Apple’s code of ethics, inadequate earnings, and poor living conditions. The ethics principles governing Apple must be strictly adhered to. This in turn, will lead to ethical processes such as, resourceful communication between the workers and top management, best design, pleasant or effective quality assurance testing, heightened knowledge and skills on the product design. Part C Introduction According to Chen and Chang (489) demand for environmental information by the stakeholders as well as the reporting of company impact on the environment have radically heightened in the last few years. Conventionally, procedures for corporate reporting have concentrated entirely on offering stakeholders financial information. Afterwards, with the alterations in technical expertise as well as social value, stakeholders are now more worried about the environmental and social security as well as sustainable progress. Consequently, stakeholders require information concerning the environmental and social impact of company’s activities as well as the conventional fiscal reports. As a result, with a comprehension of rights of stakeholders as well as organisational legality, Chen and Chang (490) believe that environmental reporting procedures at organisational level have been heightening in the first decade of 21st century. Still, it fails to sufficiently meet the demand of stakeholders with regards to environmental information. For that reason, a crack exists between the supply of and demand for environmental reporting in developed economies owing to an inequity of supply and demand of environmental reporting. Analysis Greenwash can be defined as an act of misinforming consumers concerning the company’s environmental practices or the environmental benefits of the company’s products. Proof that a company is greenwashing time and again originates from the indication of spending disparities: when considerably more time or money has been utilised publicizing being "green" (explicitly, working with concern for the surroundings), than is in fact utilised on practices that are environmentally sound. According to Chen and Chang (491) greenwashing endeavours can range from altering the product’s label or name to bring to mind the natural setting on an artefact that has dangerous chemicals to promotional campaigns worth millions that depicts extremely polluting corporations as eco-friendly. In Apple’s supplier’s factories, they have environmental protection regulations; however, it was discerned that the factory often discarded its harmful liquids forthwith into the sewage system. Furthermore, next to all machines there were blue plastic bins, which at first were filled with tap water, but CLW note that these work pieces that were cleaned in these blue plastic bins, were wrapped with cutting solution. Subsequent to washing several work pieces in those bins, the original clean water turns into white owing to the cutting solution pollution, and so the water in all bins must be changed after every few hours. CLW noted that the old water is emptied into recycling troughs located behind each computer numerical control (CNC) machine. However, when all the recycling troughs are overflowing, the machine operators cannot empty any more old water into the troughs devoid of spilling this polluted water on the floor. The remaining polluted water are emptied into the waste pipes linked to the sewage system next to workers’ restrooms, and afterwards the workers make use of water hose situated in the restroom to wash out the bins. Conversely, the Apple’s 2012 responsibility claims that the company takes full accountability for reducing the environmental effect of their products as well as suppliers’ operations. The company needs its suppliers to abide by the local rules and regulations as well as make use of environmentally accountable production practices anywhere Apple computer products are manufactured. Apple’s Code needs suppliers to appropriately manage their, hazardous wastewater, solid waste, as well as air emissions. Furthermore, all suppliers are required to get hold of the essential environmental report and permits on how their undertakings affect the surroundings. Apple suppliers must as well abide by local values by stopping pollution manufacturing, and instead work to lessen waste produced from the production process. What’s more, the supplier green practices are strictly examined by Apple’s standard audit program. Importantly, Apple understands that a lot must be done in the field of environ­mental impact plus the company is dedicated to reduce its suppliers’ negative environmental impact. According to the supplier responsibility report (2012), the company is planning to expand the number of professional environmental audits all through the company’s supply chain, which will be achieved by commencing with the highest-risk sectors. Evidently, the company is working mutually with both government and non-profitable organizations to steer enhancements in green practices all over the company’s supply chain. Conclusion All said and done, it is apparent that Apple needs facilities to instantly engage government agencies in countries where its suppliers operate and get hold of suitable authorizations as well as permits. Furthermore, Apple’s suppliers need remedial action strategies as well as preventive measures like investing in wastewater treatment facility. Furthermore, environmental responsible and accountable, the suppliers must instantly commence wastewater key indicators monitoring as needed by local agencies plus they should modify wastewater drainage pipes to entirely ensure storm water does not mix with wastewater. Besides, Apple must design procedures for standard maintenance, especially in facilities of wastewater treatment. Works Cited Apple. Apple releases 2012 'responsibility report. Progress Report. Cupertino, California: Apple, 2012. 23 February 2013. . Baugher, Shirley L. "Ethics and Moral Decision Making in a World with Ambiguous Borders." Journal of Family & Consumer Sciences;Summer 105.3 (2013): 3-67. Bhutta, Nousheen Tariq and Muhammed Mohtsham Saeed. "Accounting scandals in the context of corporate social reporting." Journal of Database Marketing & Customer Strategy Management 18.3 (2011): 171-184. Chen, Yu-shan and Ching-hsun Chang. "Greenwash and Green Trust: The Mediation Effects of Green Consumer Confusion and Green Perceived Risk." Journal of Business Ethics 114.3 (2013): 489-500. CLW, China Labor Watch. Apple's Unkept Promises: Cheap iPhones come at high coststo Chinese workers. Investigational Report. Shanghai: China Labor Watc, 2013. Schmundt, Hilmar and Bernhard Zand. Undercover Report: Apple Faces Fresh Criticism of Factories. 29 July 2013. 23 February 2014. . Read More